Not Political People

The biggest barrier to voting for the young people I talked to wasn't logistics or laziness. It was the belief that politics is corrupt—and not in a partisan way. People across the spectrum told me the system was rigged.But cynicism wasn't the whole story. The people who still believed they could make a difference were the ones who felt like they weren't acting alone. When politics felt like something you do with others, it started to feel worth doing.Being political has become an identity—and it's one that feels exclusive to a lot of young people. The question isn't whether young people have anything to say, it's whether anyone is really asking.

Young people spend an average of seven hours a day consuming media, and over half get their news from social platforms. So it's easy to assume we're all swimming in political content. But almost no one I talked to trusted what they were seeing.It wasn't that people trusted one outlet over another—they didn't trust any of them. What felt credible was whatever cut out the middleman: raw footage, personal relationships, influencers who seemed to have no agenda. The closer to the source, the easier to believe.But here's the thing: young people aren't just passively tuning out. They're actively pressing "not interested," curating their feeds, and making deliberate choices to keep politics out of their lives. Disengagement isn't laziness. It takes effort.

Out of 65 people I talked to, 55 said politics feels divisive and negative. Most had personal experience with confrontation—arguments online, ruined friendships, the sense that expressing a belief could cost them a relationship.Here's what surprised me: the less engaged someone was, the more willing they were to listen to people they disagreed with. But they were also the most likely to stay quiet. Meanwhile, the people most eager to talk politics often couldn't understand why anyone would opt out.Being political isn't just a set of actions—it's an identity. And for a lot of young people, it's one they don't want to adopt. In this episode, we explore what that identity looks like from the outside, and why the people most willing to have real conversations are the ones least likely to start them.

After every election, the headlines roll in: young voters shifted right, Latino men broke for Trump, suburban women stayed blue. Demographics have become the default way we talk about politics. But when I asked people how they came to their beliefs, the answer was never that simple—it was about morals, pros and cons, weighing impossible choices.Other people's votes? That's where the shortcuts came in.In this episode, we unpack the gap between how we see our own political reasoning and how we explain everyone else's. And for the people who do feel the need to vote according to their identity, the barrier to action isn't awareness—it's the belief that politics can actually do something for their communities.

Only 23% of young Americans call themselves politically active. But I was curious whether the rest were as disengaged as they claimed. The problem is that the people least likely to talk about politics are the hardest to find. So I spent six weeks in swing states—not with polls or clipboards, but talking face to face with the people most likely to say no. Turns out, youth who claim they're not political people have a lot to say about why. In this first episode, I introduce the project and the voices you'll hear throughout the series. We'll preview what's ahead—identity and stereotypes, the negativity that keeps people away, social media's role, and the question of whether any of this actually matters. Spoiler: being apolitical isn't indifference. It's a choice.